Fanganronpa: Epigone

Chapter Six- Despair's Best Friend

The students stood numbly in the courtroom from watching Umeda's execution and even Monokuma looked stunned.

"Oh..." Monokuma finally spoke.

"What do you mean oh?" Masaru seethed.

"I gave him a clear way out. I mean, I know he almost exposed me but I was willing to forgive him," Monokuma said.

"You were willing to break your own rules," Seto corrected, "don't tell me that you actually have a heart to care about—"

"Anyways, what's done is done!" Monokuma interrupted, "I wonder though, why did he just sit there and die?"

"Maybe because he actually had a conscious unlike you," Winona spat out.

"That must have been Shoji's execution," Mizuno said softly.

Masaru tried to hold in both his anger and grief but had to stay strong. If not for him then for everyone else.

"I'm sure they're together now," Masaru spoke, "just like he wanted."

"There is only five of us left," Toma said, "there use to be sixteen. When will this end?"

"It'll end when we make it end," Masaru stated strongly.

Monokuma rubbed his chin with his paw. "And how will you do that?"

"Another trial," Masaru proposed and his classmates let out unbelievable gasps, "not right now, of course."

"Why would you want to sit through another trial at all?" Mizuno asked.

"To finally put a stop to this," Masaru explained, "Our next trial will be the last. We'll be uncovering the mastermind this time,"

Monokuma didn't look threatened by that at all. "Can't wait!"

The bear disappeared and the students left the courtroom as soon as possible.

"This feels surreal." Seto was the first to speak when they made it back to the dorm hallways. "I would've never admit it to his face but I kind of enjoyed Umeda's company. He was an idiot but still fun to be around."

"But... but he was the traitor," Mizuno said and sniffled a bit, "he was also my friend..."

"He was a friend to all of us," Masaru told them, "I know we're all grieving but we need to focus soon for what's about to come."

"He's right," Winona agreed, "we'll be ending this once and for all."

Toma nodded. "Yes. We can do this. For our freedom."

"Alright then," Seto said, "we should get some rest because we have a big day tomorrow."

The other students agreed and they all entered their own dorms. Masaru knew this would be an important trial since it would determine their freedom or not. He would need to go through all his notes including all the clues he had found along the way.

As Masaru got ready to sleep he hoped another memory dream would come to him as another clue like the rest have. Just like Seto said, tomorrow is when they'll start their investigation. And he'll have to tell his classmates everything.

*. *. *. *.

...

Unfortunately, another memory dream did not surface but that was okay because Masaru still had other clues to rely on. He made sure to awake before the morning announcement and grabbed the Danganronpa book from under his bed along with his notepad that was on his desk. He made sure to look over everything and made a note to remember bring up the linguist that Priscilla and him haven't told the others about yet. Only Matsuyama and Umeda knew about that but they're both...